08/20/2014

Heidenheim/Germany. Voith has achieved another success in the field of power generation from renewable energies: the company modernizes a generator of the North Hesse pumped storage power station Waldeck 2 - one of Germany's most important pumped storage power plants. As part of the order Voith is exchanging the stator and the rotor, assembles the two machine parts and puts them back into service. The project will extend the service life and increase the efficiency of the machine unit. The order volume amounts to nearly EUR nine million.

"Pumped storage power plants such as Waldeck will continue to make a vital contribution to secure and stable energy supplies. As giant batteries they store energy from irregularly available regenerative sources such as wind and solar and feed this energy quickly and flexibly back into the grid as and when required," says Dr. Roland Münch, Chairman of the Management Board of Voith Hydro. "Hydropower is reliable, sustainable and climate-friendly, and has long become an indispensable part of the renewable energy mix. This is why we are consistently developing our technologies for utilizing these energy sources."

Apart from working on the further improvement of existing hydropower technologies and their adaptation to the future requirements of energy systems, Voith also develops new products. An example is the StreamDiver from Voith, a compact turbine-generator-unit. Due to its river water lubrication and its compact design, the StreamDiver can be embedded at weirs, dams and locks, where such installations had previously been impossible for either economical or ecological reasons. Since the StreamDiver has a particularly maintenance-friendly design, any unavoidable interference with the environment during installation can be reduced to a minimum. In the category "Large Companies", the StreamDiver was among the finalists of the Innovation Prize of the Germany Economy 2014. Earlier this year the first commercial order for the StreamDiver was signed for a project in Sweden.

"Our customer orientation and our innovative power make us an internationally leading supplier of plants, technologies and services in the hydropower industry," says Münch. "More than one third of the electricity generated from hydropower worldwide originates from hydro power stations that incorporate our know-how."

Voith is active in hydropower projects all over the world: the company supplies, for example, the electro-mechanical equipment for the expansion of Tarbela hydropower station in Pakistan. The order comprises the delivery of three generators, three Francis turbines, the automation system, as well as the electrical and mechanical balance-of-plant systems. The expansion will increase the output of the power plant by about 40 percent to a total of 4,888 megawatt. In addition, Voith equips the new hydropower station Cambambe II in Angola with generators, turbines and control technology. With this project, Angola will double its installed hydropower output. In June, Xiluodu hydropower station was connected to the grid in China: there, Voith installed the most powerful generator-turbine-units ever built by the company. With 784 megawatt, each of the generator-turbine-units produces more power than those of the world's largest hydropower stations. Xiluodu constitutes an important milestone on the way to the one-gigawatt-machines of the future.

Voith sets standards in the markets energy, oil & gas, paper, raw materials and transport & automotive. Founded in 1867, Voith employs more than 43,000 people, generates €5.7 billion in sales, operates in over 50 countries around the world and is today one of the biggest family-owned companies in Europe.